


oh, i want the truth to be known

by ShowMeAHero



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Dick Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, Graphic Description, Hand Jobs, Humor, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Major Character Injury, Marriage Proposal, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Protective Eddie Kaspbrak, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:40:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21665812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: They’re not looking at him, so Richie lifts his jacket and looks at his side, where the pain seems to be radiating from. On his side, ripped clean across through to his back, he’s got a gaping wound from Pennywise’s claw. It missed Eddie and pierced right through him, shredding his side when he rolled Eddie away and scrambled up after him. Richie feels woozy just looking at it.“My shirt,” Richie mumbles mindlessly. It’s theleastof his fucking concerns, but he’s pretty sure his shirt looks a lot like the shirt the guy wears inA Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge,and he was hoping someone else would notice someday. He wasreallyhoping Eddie might be that someone.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 82
Kudos: 1538





	oh, i want the truth to be known

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sabisun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabisun/gifts).



> A commission for [sabisun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabisun)!
> 
> Title taken from ["True"](https://open.spotify.com/track/6eDYgjKl4vUgRusxb7THDu?si=vvWsf7g5Q4eAJScM803VdQ) by Spandau Ballet.

Richie watches Eddie die.

He saw it. He  _ saw it.  _ He saw Eddie get stabbed through the chest, and he saw Eddie’s corpse, and— and that’s  _ it.  _ He saw Eddie  _ die. _

He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to do, after that. The Losers have to drag him out of Neibolt, because there’s no  _ fucking  _ way he’s leaving without Eddie. Over his fucking dead body, and it would’ve been, if they hadn’t literally physically pulled him from the building. He watches Neibolt crumple in on itself, trapping Eddie’s body underneath, and he can’t stop screaming with his forehead pressed to the loose gravel of the street, his fists curled into the pavement.

They drive him to the quarry. He stares out the window soundlessly. Every now and then, someone will look to him, but he can’t do anything. He can’t be Richie Tozier right now, not without Eddie Kaspbrak. Not anymore.

Watching the other Losers in the water at the quarry is surreal. Bill and Mike are speaking softly to each other, washing blood and grime off of one another. Bev and Ben are fucking  _ kissing.  _ The four of them are just— just making  _ jokes,  _ talking about how fucking Eddie would be miserable there as if they hadn’t watched him die  _ half an hour ago— _

Richie breaks into a sob again, burying his face in his hands. Bev comes over, puts her hands on his shoulders, but he brushes her off and gets up.

“I’m leaving,” he says. They all start to say variations of, “No,” and “But, Rich—” but he waves them away. “I can’t. I can’t do this, not without—” He stops, shakes his head, looking down. Suddenly, nobody’s looking at him; their avoidance is heavier than anything else, though.

Richie starts to wade through the water, but his head starts to ache. After another step, the ache shifts into a piercing pain, shooting through his skull; he stumbles, then falls into the water.

“Richie!” someone’s voice calls. His stomach rolls, nausea flashing hot through his belly as he swallows hard, nearly underwater. He shakes his head, but that just makes his head hurt worse and throws the world into a dizzy spin, disorienting him. His stomach turns again, twisting and gurgling, so he swallows and coughs until he can feel it coming up his throat, and he vomits into the water. He can feel Beverly trying to help him up, but his head’s splitting apart, he’s vomiting the entire contents of his stomach, he can’t stop fucking  _ shaking— _

“Oh, fuck, Richie,” someone’s voice says. It almost sounds like Eddie, and he gags again, vomiting so hard he hurts his throat. He falls into the water, unable to hold himself up, and feels like he drifts further than he should, past a silty bottom that should’ve stopped him. He keeps sinking, in a daze, and he can feel hands on him, so he opens his eyes. There’s murky water, blurred faces, and then—

Nothing.

Then, he’s blinking his eyes open again, gasping for air, and Eddie’s above him.

“Eddie,” he whispers.

“Hey, there you are, Rich!” Eddie exclaims. He looks over his shoulder, and they’re in the sewers again. Pennywise’s giant fucked-up spider corpse is impaled behind him again. Eddie looks back to him, grinning. “I think I killed It! Rich, I did it! I—”

Richie’s still watching Pennywise, and he sees It start to move, and so he moves as quickly as he can. He ignores the splitting pain in his head and his legs and just  _ rolls,  _ shoving Eddie away just in time for Pennywise’s claw to pierce the place Eddie had  _ just  _ been.

The claw isn’t in Eddie’s chest. Instead, it’s in Richie’s, caught in his side, pinning him to the ground. He chokes on a scream, caught in his throat, and pushes at Eddie, just trying to get them away. He rolls into him, ripping Pennywise’s claw  _ through  _ his side to get away, but once he’s free, he’s scrambling into a half-stumble and dragging Eddie with him until they’re hidden under an outcropping of rock. His side is bleeding, he can  _ feel  _ it, and his entire fucking  _ abdomen  _ hurts, and, for a moment, it’s all he can process.

“Holy shit, Richie,” Eddie exclaims. The pain shuffles to the back of Richie’s mind so he can focus on Eddie instead. He sounds winded, but he’s fucking  _ alive,  _ unhurt and breathing and  _ okay,  _ and Richie huffs a laugh. He’s in so much fucking pain, but he can’t even figure out where it’s all originating from, and the only thought cycling through his brain is  _ it’s okay, he’s okay, Eddie’s okay, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real,  _ over and over.

“Holy shit, yourself,” Richie groans back, shifting to lift his head. Pennywise is rearing back to hit them again, sneaking under the outcropping, so he grabs Eddie up off the ground and stumbles both of them to their feet. He can see a gap in the wall behind them; he takes Eddie’s hand and makes a run for it, diving through the opening and dragging Eddie in after him. The two of them scoot down until they’re deep inside the passageway, almost hidden.

“We’re in here!” Eddie calls up through the opening. Mike and Bill come sliding down, then Bev, then Ben after her, until they’re all kneeling together. Bev and Bill are looking Eddie over for injury, but he keeps assuring them he’s alright.

“I saw you die,” Richie tells him. Eddie looks at him with those big fucking eyes of his, same ones he’s always had, same ones Richie fell in love with when they were kids. That’s the fucking kicker: Richie loves him,  _ loves him, _ and he almost lost him, and he would never have said anything. After  _ forty years.  _ “In the— In the Deadlights, I guess? Was what that was? And I saw him stab you like he just almost did, and you died, and we defeated It, and then we—”

“We defeated It?” Mike demands.  _ “How?” _

“You made me leave Eddie behind,” Richie roars, getting up and shoving Bill backwards, just because he’s the first one he can get his hands on. Ben comes over to him, grabbing his arm, but Richie shoves him off, too. “Don’t you  _ fucking  _ touch me! I would  _ never  _ leave one of you behind!  _ Never!  _ And you fucking left behind Eddie!  _ Eddie!” _

“Richie, it wasn’t real,” Eddie tells him. He gets up, too, takes Richie’s hand in his. Richie looks down at him and can’t comprehend him standing right there, when it had seemed like he was never going to see him again.

“Eds, I—” Richie starts to say, then stops. “I— I don’t want to lose you without talking to you.”

“Richie, you’re  _ always  _ talking to me,” Eddie replies. He smiles, then says, “What do you—”

“I know this is probably important, I  _ know,  _ and I’m  _ sorry,”  _ Mike interrupts desperately. “But— Richie, how did we defeat Pennywise in the Deadlights? What did we do?”

Richie hesitates, trying to think. He’s still in so much fucking pain; some of it is in his knees and his ankles, he’s assuming from his fall when Pennywise released him from the Deadlights, and his back hurts. Some of it still is concentrated in his head like the worst migraine he’s ever had, drilling away at his eyes. Most of it is coming from his side, but he can’t really remember why, and he can’t look without freaking everyone out, so he just— doesn’t. For now.

_ Ignorance is bliss,  _ he decides, and doubles down.

“Eddie said something about how he was able to choke him,” Richie says.

“Fuck, I  _ did _ choke him,” Eddie exclaims. “In the pharmacy! I got my hands around his throat and I was choking him! I could feel him getting smaller, I swear, it worked—”

And they’re off, theorizing and thinking and coming up with plans. They’re not looking at him, so Richie lifts his jacket and looks at his side, where the pain seems to be radiating from. On his side, ripped clean across through to his back, he’s got a gaping wound from Pennywise’s claw. It missed Eddie and pierced right through him, shredding his side when he rolled Eddie away and scrambled up after him. Richie feels woozy just looking at it.

“My shirt,” Richie mumbles mindlessly. It’s the  _ least  _ of his fucking concerns, but he’s pretty sure his shirt looks a lot like the shirt the guy wears in  _ A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge,  _ and he was hoping someone else would notice someday. He was  _ really  _ hoping Eddie might be that someone.

“What’s up?” Eddie asks. Richie pulls his jacket back down and looks up at him. He feels sluggish, but Eddie’s looking at him with those big eyes again, and he can’t fucking let him down. They  _ need  _ him. It needs to be all of them, together.

“I’m ready,” Richie says. “Let’s go, let’s go fuck him up, let’s make him small.”

Richie grabs Eddie’s shoulder to steady himself. Eddie claps his hand over Richie’s, pulls him in to hug. It hurts so fucking bad, to hold him like this, but his jacket is covering the hole in his side and Eddie doesn’t notice; he actually turns his face into Richie’s chest and fucking  _ sighs  _ before pulling back.

“We’re gonna make it out okay,” Eddie tells him. Richie nods. He’ll do absolutely  _ anything  _ to prevent the future he saw in the Deadlights from happening. Eddie won’t die, not now that Richie knows he can’t survive without him.

“I can’t survive without you,” Richie says, because he can’t think of anything else to tell him. He wonders if that’s indicative of something larger or not, if his cloudy inability to lie to Eddie means he’s losing his grip on— on something. His brain, maybe. His life.

“Lucky you, I’m not going anywhere,” Eddie replies. He pulls at Richie’s hand, and Richie goes, because Eddie needs him to. He yells Pennywise down with them, and he destroys the heart with them, and the sewer starts to collapse all the same. They have a little bit more of a head start this time, though, because the other Losers don’t have to pry Richie off of Eddie’s dead body. They don’t have to waste their time dragging Richie out of Neibolt, just to kiss each other at the quarry while Richie gets up to drive off and kill himself. They’re ahead of the schedule the Deadlights had showed him.

Pennywise dies, and the world starts to shake apart. Richie can’t go very quickly, but neither can Mike, so Bill and Bev help him while Ben and Eddie help Richie. It’s dark in the sewers, and Richie can hardly breathe. He wonders what the fuck is actually  _ in  _ the greywater that’s currently soaking into his bloodstream.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie asks. He sounds a little slurred even to his own ears, so he clears his throat, leaning heavily into Eddie’s side. 

“Hi, Rich,” Eddie replies. “Can this wait until we’re outside? The sewers are kind of collapsing on us.”

“Oh, right, that was my question,” Richie says. He shifts, gripping Eddie’s shirt tightly so he doesn’t fall and get lost in the greywater. He feels like he’ll never resurface, if he lets go; Ben’s arm around his waist is grounding, and Eddie’s arm around his shoulders is maddening. “What’s actually in the greywater? Anything that could cause an infection?”

“Why?” Eddie demands, looking down at him.

“Because you’ve got a fucking hole in your face,” Richie reminds him. Eddie scowls at him and looks away; Richie takes the opportunity to push his jacket into his side to try and stifle the bleeding, but he can feel how warm and slick his side is from the slime of the greywater and the steady pulsing ooze of his blood.

“There’s—” Eddie says, then groans in frustration. “I don’t know, Richie, it’s like, bathwater and piss and—”

“That’s good,” Richie interrupts him, feeling sick. “Yeah, that’s fine, you can stop.”

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks him. Richie nods, giving him a thumbs up and swallowing heavily. “Hey, guys, I think Richie’s—”

Richie shoves Eddie off of him and doubles over in the greywater. He can feel his stomach turning, getting ready to expel its contents, and he tries swallowing again before his body turns on him. He gags, then braces his hands on his knees and vomits into the water. Eddie’s hand hesitantly touches his back, then takes his glasses off when he gasps and vomits again, pushing his own hair back as if it fucking mattered.

“Come on, let’s go,” Eddie tells him, grabbing his arm. Richie stumbles a couple of steps, his side still blazing with pain as Eddie all but drags him forward after Ben. Richie’s stomach gurgles, and then he pushes Eddie away again to dry heave once before the nausea rolls through him again and he coughs, his head nearly going under when he vomits this time. Eddie catches him by the shoulders, hauls him upright.

“I need help!” Eddie calls. Ben’s there in a moment, pulling Richie’s arm around his shoulders and pulling him up into his side.

“You’re alright, Rich, c’mon,” Ben tells him quietly. Richie gets his legs under himself, his head throbbing. He can hardly keep his eyes open as Ben drags him out of the sewers and up into the fucking crackhead house on Neibolt Street. Richie catches himself on the edge of the well and stumbles. He pulls his jacket back again, examining the wound in his side. He’s lost a chunk of muscle and skin, torn out by Pennywise’s claw. Looking at it, he’s almost hypnotized by his own blood spreading through his clothes and down his leg.

“Rich, let’s  _ go,”  _ Eddie calls to him. He runs back when he sees Richie not moving, helps Ben hoist him up and back onto his feet. Between the two of them, they manage to drag Richie out of the house and outside, into the street, where they let him go and he staggers once before falling to his knees.

The house on Neibolt Street collapses in on itself, but Eddie is next to him, this time. Richie looks to him, grabbing for his face.

“Rich, hey, it’s okay,” Eddie tells him. He catches Richie’s wrists, stopping his desperate attempts to clutch onto Eddie’s face. “We’re okay, I’m okay, I gotcha. You’re okay now, Richie, okay?”

“Eddie,” Richie says softly. “I can’t— I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Eddie asks. Richie hesitates, then looks away, shaking his head. “Richie, whatever it is, you can tell me. We’re okay now, you can tell me anything you want, we  _ did it,  _ Rich—”

Richie leans in and catches Eddie’s lips against his. Eddie snaps backwards, looking down at him with a frown and a furrowed brow.

“Richie, that’s  _ disgusting,”  _ Eddie says, sounding strangled. Richie feels fucking  _ dizzy,  _ the world blurring in and out, hazy. “You just— You just  _ threw up,  _ Rich, that’s—” Eddie looks away, gagging, which is enough to set Richie off again, pushing away from him to heave in the street.

“We have to get to a hospital,” Bev says, “Look at him, he’s shaking.”

All Richie can think is Eddie’s voice, on a loop, saying,  _ “Richie, that’s disgusting,”  _ after he kissed him. When Eddie gets his hands on Richie’s shoulders again, Richie brushes him off.

“I’m sorry, Eds,” Richie says miserably. He turns his head and sees Mike standing there, looking at him with wide eyes. Richie pulls his jacket tighter around himself, wrapping his arms around his front. He looks down at his hands with a frown, then laughs humorlessly. “You know, Eds, I used to, uhh— I used to sit there like this.” Richie hugs himself, then says, “See, and I’d— I’d pretend it was you. Or I’d hold my own hand and shut my eyes and pretend it was yours, when I was a kid.”

“Richie,  _ what,”  _ Eddie says desperately.

“I don’t want to die alone,” Richie tells him, “I don’t, I don’t want to die alone, I don’t want to die without anyone knowing me.”

“I know you, Richie,” Eddie says. He clutches Richie’s hand, then cups his face and says, “I’m not going anywhere. And you’re not fucking dying, anyways, so this doesn’t  _ matter.” _

It hurts so badly that it’s starting to not hurt anymore, like a burn so painful it feels cold. Richie grabs onto Eddie’s sweatshirt, holds him tight so Eddie won’t go anywhere Richie can’t follow. He’s wheezing, just trying to breathe; Eddie looks confused and horrified, trying to hold Richie up from the pavement.

“Eds, I’ve been in love with you since I was fucking five years old,” Richie tells him. Eddie’s expression becomes alarmed, then anguished. He cups the back of Richie’s head in his hand, holds him close. “I’m sorry. Eds, I’m  _ sorry—” _

“Why are you  _ sorry?”  _ Eddie asks. He moves his hands down Richie’s chest, and Richie flinches away when he gets to the hole torn through this side. Frowning, Eddie looks down between them. “Are you bleeding? Richie—”

“Eddie, I’m so sorry,” Richie says again. “Please don’t let me die alone, please—”

“Eddie, his side,” Bev says over him, sounding horrified. Richie can’t hold himself up anymore; luckily, Eddie’s got him, catching him before he collapses right into the road. Eddie pulls his jacket back and examines the space between them.

“Richie,” Eddie says quietly. “You’re hurt.”

“I didn’t—” Richie starts to say, then coughs. Eddie’s hands fumble for his side. “I just wanted to get us out. Eddie, I couldn’t let you die—”

“But Richie, now  _ you’re  _ going to die.” He sounds so broken. Richie just has to close his eyes. “No.  _ No,  _ you’re not going to die— Ben, get over here, help me,  _ help me—” _

There are hands on him, and Ben’s face swims into Richie’s bleary vision. “We’re gonna get you outta here, Rich. Hold on, okay?”

“Why the  _ fuck  _ didn’t you tell me?” Eddie demands. Richie grapples for him, holding him by the edges of his sweatshirt. “Why did you keep this from me? What the fuck is  _ wrong  _ with you?”

Richie pulls him in and tries to cling to him. His grip isn’t strong anymore, slipping off the material. He wants to speak, but every time he tries, he just feels blood fill his mouth. He turns his head and sees Mike pulling his car around. Ben gets his arms under Richie’s shoulders.

“I didn’t mean to,” Richie tells him. He spits blood out into the street. “I just wanted us to— us to beat him. I just wanted to save you.”

Eddie shakes his head furiously. Bill’s holding Richie’s legs when they hoist him up, and it takes everything in him not to cry out. Eddie cups his face, then releases him, letting Ben and Bill carry him over to the backseat and lift him up and in. Eddie clambers in with him, buckling Richie in. He pulls Richie’s head into his lap, stroking his hair back from his face.

“Oh, fuck, Eddie, look,” Richie says weakly. He reaches down, probing at the edges of his wound with his fingers. Eddie snatches his hands back, but it’s too late. Richie can see the inside of his own torso, can see the splintered edge of a rib where it was snapped apart. There’s skin, muscle, so much fucking  _ blood,  _ Richie can’t look away from it.

“Stop,” Eddie orders. His hands grab Richie’s face and direct him upwards so they’re facing each other. Richie tries to focus on Eddie’s eyes. “Richie. Look at me. You are  _ not  _ going to die.” He strokes Richie’s hair back from his face, then says, “I’m in love with you, too. I’m in love with you, I was in love with you when we were kids. You can’t die now, you  _ can’t.” _

Richie coughs a laugh. Eddie kisses him again, in spite of the vomit and the blood, and if Richie hadn’t been convinced by his words, he’d be convinced by that, because it  _ has  _ to be disgusting. Eddie’s words ring in his head again, saying,  _ “Richie, that’s disgusting,”  _ and he shivers, disoriented. Eddie pulls back.

“Richie,  _ please,”  _ Eddie says. It sounds like he’s saying it softly, but Richie can’t be sure. It feels like the car is moving, but the world is spinning, too, and he’s not positive which is which. He turns his face into Eddie’s hips, just tries to burrow inside of him. If he’s going to die, he wants to die with Eddie. “Richie.  _ Richie!” _

“‘M’kay,” Richie mumbles. He can’t get the words out right. He clings to Eddie as best he can, because he’s touch-starved and he’s  _ dying  _ so if he doesn’t do it now, he’ll never get to do it.  _ Never.  _ It’s now a  _ real  _ concept, because he’s fucking  _ toast.  _ “Eds.”

“Yeah, I’m here, Rich, hey,” Eddie says. “Hey. Hey, Richie,  _ Richie,  _ look at me,  _ hey!” _

“Hi,” Richie tells him. “I was— Mmph. Hi.”

“You were what, Rich?” Eddie asks. “What were you?”

“Oh.” Richie frowns, trying to draw his knees up. It hurts his side, and he groans. “I… Ugh. I would’ve married you.”

Eddie’s quiet for a beat before he says, “What?”

“If I’d’ve known,” Richie mumbles. “Eds, I think— I think ‘m dying—”

“You are  _ not  _ dying,” Eddie snaps. “You’re  _ not.  _ Richie, you just— You have to make it two more minutes, do you hear me?  _ Two more minutes—” _

“Eds.” Richie puts his last ounce of strength into turning back around and sitting up. Eddie makes a disgusted sound when he does, but Richie doesn’t look down, because if he sees his own insides come out, he’ll probably freak out and then they’ll really be in trouble. He pulls Eddie in and kisses him again.

“You’ll be okay,” Eddie whispers against his mouth. “I promise.”

“You can’t,” Richie says. He strokes his hand absently over the side of Eddie’s face. “I would’ve married you. I would’ve loved you right. I would’ve made sure you weren’t alone, Eddie—”

“Stop,” Eddie cuts him off. “Richie,  _ stop,  _ you can— You can still do all that, I’ll let you. I’ll—”

Eddie shakes his head, and Richie lays his head against his shoulder. He can’t hold himself up anymore. He looks up at Eddie, trying to keep his eyes on his face as long as he can. He wants Eddie’s face to be the last thing he sees. Eddie’s face is the first thing he remembers, too, from when they were two years old and Eddie had accidentally pushed him over and cried. He doesn’t want his last sight to be Eddie crying again, though.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Richie assures him. “‘S not your fault. ‘Kay?”

“Richie—”

_ “Hey,”  _ Richie snaps, as best as he can snap. Eddie pulls his head in.

“Okay,” Eddie says softly. Richie smiles up at him and looks hard at his face,  _ really  _ hard, burning it into his memory so he can still see it when he shuts his eyes. “Richie. Richie, hey, Richie—  _ Richie—” _

He can feel Eddie shaking him, but he’s not in his own head anymore. He feels like he’s sinking backwards, getting sucked out of his own limbs inch by inch until he’s laying back and drifting, amorphous, no body, no sight. Nothingness. He misses Eddie, but that’s all. Sometimes, he thinks he can hear Eddie’s shouting voice, flashing lights and grabbing hands and Eddie’s face swimming over his, grabbing him by the jaw, saying  _ “You’re going to be okay,”  _ but Richie’s just a passenger on the ride of his own life.

He feels a rush of cold shoot through his veins, a jolt run through his chest, and he gasps, his eyes shooting open again. He looks around, trying to find Eddie anywhere.

“Eddie,” he tries to say, but someone’s pushing him back down by the shoulders. There’s a tube in his throat, and he’s being sedated, but he finally lays eyes on Eddie, shoving at Ben and a nurse to try and get through to him. Richie reaches out, and someone takes his hand. There’s an IV in the back of it before he can blink.

“He needs me, you— you motherfuckers, let me  _ go,”  _ Eddie shouts. Richie fights against the wave of exhaustion that washes over him, but then there’s another, and another, and he slips away again, falling into an abstract sort of sleep, restless.

The next time he wakes up, he’s not moving. Nobody’s standing over him. It’s dark, and there’s a warm weight in his hand, and he has a sharp pain lancing through his side.

He almost curses, but then he realizes there’s a tube in his throat. He shuts his eyes and breathes slowly, thanking his years of sinful practice beating back his physical gag reflex. He inhales, slowly, then exhales. After a moment, he squeezes whatever’s in his hand.

“Mm?” Eddie’s voice murmurs. Richie holds his hand tighter; he can see the exact moment he registers what, exactly, is going on, and who’s holding his hand. “Richie.”

Richie pulls his hand free to wave at him. He motions to the tube in his throat, then shrugs in a  _ what can you do?  _ sort of motion. Eddie slams the call button for the nurse and frames Richie’s face in his hands.

“I love you,” Eddie tells him. “I want to make sure you know that if you fall asleep again. Okay?”

Richie nods, as best as he’s able to. He can feel the backs of his eyes prickling, embarrassingly, and he shuts them for a second before Eddie rattles him a bit.

“Don’t go,” Eddie pleads. He smiles a little bit, then kisses Richie on the forehead. Richie shuts his eyes again, revels in the warmth of Eddie’s mouth and his hands before the nurse comes and separates them.

She doesn’t deem him ready to have his breathing tube removed. When she turns her back, Richie flips her off. Eddie smacks him on the shoulder, which makes Richie groan in pain, which makes his throat hurt enough to cough around the breathing tube. The nurse pushes Eddie away to calm Richie down, shooting daggers at him with her eyes the entire time. By the time she’s got him calmed and normal again, Eddie’s sobered and sat back down. Richie can’t talk, so he just watches Eddie. He looks tired, but that’s nothing new. He’s looked tired since Richie saw him again (for the first time? second time?) at the Jade of the Orient.

The nurse changes the dressings on Richie’s side, showing him the stitches holding his torso together. He almost gags, but manages to keep it together. When she finally leaves after giving him his medication through his IV, Eddie looks as tired as Richie feels.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Eddie assures him. He drags his chair close to Richie’s bed again and clutches his hand tight. “Hey. I’m here.”

Richie motions for the side table attached to his hospital bed. Eddie finds his glasses and unfolds them; even though both of the lenses are cracked, Eddie sets them on his face for him. Finally, he can see Eddie in some detail, and he could almost sob, if he could breathe properly. Eddie fumbles for his phone, then hands it to Richie, open to his  **notes** app.

“Type what you want to say,” he tells him. Richie takes his phone. For a moment, he doesn’t write anything. Then, he starts to type, one letter at a time.

_ i love you,  _ he writes. Eddie leans over his shoulder to read his words as he writes them.  _ didn’t mean to keep anything from you. just scared. _

“I was scared, too,” Eddie says. “Richie, when— God, when you collapsed, I just— I freaked out, I don’t fucking— I can’t live without you anymore. Sorry if that’s too much.”

_ if i could talk i would’ve said that already,  _ Richie types. Eddie huffs a laugh.

“I’m sure you would’ve,” Eddie says.

_ myra?  _ Richie writes. Eddie doesn’t say anything for a moment. The silence goes on long enough that Richie points at her name.

“Yeah, I see it, dickhead,” Eddie snaps without heat. “I know. I have to file for divorce, get all my shit together, you have to recover, I’m sure you’ll need physical therapy, we’ll have to— What are you writing?”

_ you dont have to work me into your plans,  _ Richie types out. Eddie looks at him like he’s dumb as shit. Richie’s missed that look a  _ lot. _

“You  _ are  _ my plans,” Eddie tells him.  _ Now  _ he’s starting to sound heated, and Richie would be more interested in it, but his medication is kicking in and he’s starting to feel drowsy. He grapples for Eddie’s hand again; Eddie holds it tightly, looks Richie dead in the eye. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll go home with you. Is that okay with you, Richie?”

Richie nods tiredly. It’s really all he wants, is for Eddie to stay with him. He pulls Eddie’s hand to his face; when he remembers he can’t kiss it, he just presses it to his cheek instead. Eddie cups his face, kisses him on the forehead, and says, “I’ll be here when you wake up, Rich.”

Richie nods again, closing his eyes and tipping his head into Eddie’s hands. He lets himself fall asleep with the understanding that Eddie  _ promised  _ he’d still be there when he wakes up. He  _ promised. _

* * *

Richie’s been dozing off for the last couple of minutes on their sofa. Once Eddie had moved the last of his shit out of his place with Myra in New York, and he and Richie had gotten settled at their place in Chicago, he’d insisted on getting new furniture with him. He told Richie it was because he wanted furniture that they chose together, but it’s also partially that Eddie was  _ sure  _ he couldn’t live not knowing what the  _ fuck  _ Richie had let happen to the sofa before Eddie came back into his life.

He doesn’t say anything, for a while. He’s sitting up, tucked into the corner of the sofa, and Richie’s got his head in his lap, his arms curled loosely around Eddie’s legs as he yawns. The television’s playing some old movie that came on after the sitcom they’d actually been watching, but Eddie’s not paying any attention to it.

“You being a freak?” Richie mumbles. He lifts his head a little bit. Eddie drifts his hand over Richie’s bare side, his t-shirt long since abandoned on the floor. The stitches that had held Richie together six months ago in Derry had healed into a misshapen scar on his side that Richie tries to keep covered, which is why Eddie insists he be shirtless at home as often as he can be. For exposure therapy. And no other reasons.

“Always,” Eddie says. “Watch who you’re calling a freak, though. Pot, kettle.”

“Never said I wasn’t.” He shifts and presses up to kiss Eddie, then pulls back. “Want a drink? I’ll make you anything you want.”

“Make me hot chocolate,” Eddie tells him, stretching out on the sofa when Richie stands. Richie leaves him there, kissing his forehead before he goes. The old movie keeps playing on the television. Eddie half-pays attention until Richie comes back with two mugs in his hands, leaving them on their low coffee table before bending over Eddie again. From his strange angle laying down on the sofa, Eddie can see Richie’s dick vividly through his grey sweatpants. He glances up at his face.

“Your wish is my command,” Richie tells him. He lifts Eddie’s upper body and sits underneath where his head had been resting, gently laying him back down until his head’s in his lap. “Ugh. You’re so  _ cute.” _

“You only say that because you think I’m short, even though I’m  _ not  _ short,” Eddie insists, as Richie cups his face and curves over him to kiss his hair. “You’re just  _ really  _ tall.”

“You’re compact,” Richie murmurs into the crown of his head. “It gives you the illusion of being four feet tall. Besides, you  _ are  _ cute.”

“I’m not.”

“You  _ are,”  _ Richie tells him. He pinches his cheek, then takes his chin in his hand so he can kiss him softly. When he pulls back, he says, “You feral little monster. Adorable. Those big old eyes of yours, those rock hard abs— Who could resist you?”

“You’re such a  _ weirdo,”  _ Eddie says emphatically. He loves Richie,  _ loves him,  _ can’t believe he lost fucking  _ decades  _ with the one person he loved more than anyone else on the planet. He runs his hand over the gnarled knot of scar tissue that makes up Richie’s side.

“Speaking of weirdos,” Richie comments. He squirms out from under Eddie’s hand, then presses up into him for a kiss. Eddie reaches down, palms him through his sweatpants. It’s not hard to find his dick, and it’s not difficult, after that, to start stroking him until he’s half-hard. Richie’s got his eyes shut, his forehead pressed into Eddie’s shoulder, gasping softly. “What the  _ fuck  _ gets you off about my scar?”

“Reminds me you’re alive,” Eddie murmurs. He pulls the drawstring on Richie’s sweatpants to loosen them before he dips his hand inside the waistband. “Richie, I really don’t think you understand how fucked up I was, when I thought I’d lost you.”

_ He can’t understand, _ Eddie thinks, even though Richie insists that he  _ can,  _ that he’d seen Eddie die in the vision he had while he was trapped in the Deadlights. Eddie can’t imagine that  _ any  _ vision is bad as the reality he lived. There’s nothing that haunts Eddie more than Richie doubling over and vomiting into the greywater, going ashy-pale and silent, needing Ben and Eddie to drag him out of the sewers. The horrified look on Richie’s face when they kissed the first time, the resignation when he’d thought he was dying, all of it echoes in Eddie’s brain.

More than anything, he relives Richie barely clinging to life in the backseat of Mike’s car, his head on Eddie’s shoulder, just like it is now. He’d been bleeding out, then, his side torn to shreds by Pennywise when Richie had pushed  _ Eddie  _ out of the way, it had been  _ his fault,  _ and Richie had  _ kept it from him.  _ He relives it, over and over, the way Richie had told him in the car that he would’ve married him if he’d known that Eddie was in love with him.

Eddie’s not sure what he would’ve done, if circumstances had been different. If he had been the one who got hurt, or if they’d all been okay, or— or any number of other situations or scenarios. He’s not sure whether or not he’d be strong enough to abandon his life, but he likes to think he would’ve been regardless. He just knows, after he lived through thinking he’d lost Richie— After he’d thought Richie had died in his arms and he had lost his  _ mind,  _ screaming and sobbing and tipping into an anxiety attack so severe it had felt like a fucking heart attack—

He can’t— He can’t lose Richie.

He  _ can’t. _

So he didn’t. He followed him to Los Angeles to pack up his shit, had found them a place in Chicago and moved them in while Richie was slowly recovering from having his body shredded by a giant clown spider monster… thing. He’d filed for divorce from Myra, and it was finally,  _ finally  _ all processed. He’d received the finalizations in the mail that afternoon. It was all over, and he’d ended it himself. He fucking  _ did that. _

“Earth to Eddie,” Richie gasps against his throat. Eddie comes back into the moment, drags himself out of his own head forcibly. “Are you even paying attention or are you just fucking jerking me off while thinking about— Fucking, I don’t know, Mr. Clean—”

“You’re such a shithead,” Eddie snaps at him. He wraps his hand around Richie’s dick properly and shifts them so he can lean over Richie, nosing along the side of his head and into his hair. He bites at his earlobe, drawing a sharp gasp out of him.

“Love you,” Richie says, and it’s such a thrill every  _ time,  _ sending shivers up Eddie’s spine. This time, they spark like fireworks through his lower abdomen, curling up with a blazing heat below his stomach. He shifts, his own cock barely moving in his pajama pants as he tries to find friction and receives none.

“Love you,” Eddie murmurs back. He pushes Richie’s shoulders back so he’s laying flat on the sofa, and he climbs over him, one knee on either side of his legs. They’d chosen a sofa wide enough to do this  _ for this exact purpose;  _ when they’d looked around the furniture store, Richie had evaluated each one based on how, exactly, they could fuck on it, while Eddie had smacked him and cursed at him to stop.

Eddie draws his hands down Richie’s chest, over his soft belly and down to his sweatpants again. He pulls them down to Richie’s mid-thigh, then sits over them to hold them in place. Richie bucks up into him, so Eddie takes him in his hand. With his other hand, he grabs hold of Richie’s side, the slightly-paler color of Richie’s skin in the scar tissue still flushing under his palm just the same as the rest of him.

“Fuck, Eddie,  _ shit,”  _ Richie curses. Eddie leans forward, almost disappointed that he’s too hard to make it long enough to take Richie’s dick inside of him.

“Fuck, I want you to fuck me,” Eddie tells him, “but I fucking— I’m too close—”

“You think  _ you’re  _ too close,” Richie says. “You want me to fuck you, you don’t actually realize— Oh,  _ fuck,  _ do that again—”

Eddie does, brings his other hand down to get both of them on Richie’s dick. His cock’s big enough to necessitate both hands, as it turns out; Eddie had been equal shocks delighted and dismayed to find out that Richie’s jokes about his huge cock over the years had been true. Delighted, because he loves that he’s the one who gets to get fucked by it; dismayed, because Richie’s been insufferable while telling the fucking  _ truth  _ about his giant dick.

“Come on, Richie,” Eddie says quietly, and Richie whines, head digging back into the sofa cushions. Eddie leans over him, feels Richie trying to thrust up into him, trapped by his sweatpants still caught around his thighs. He rolls his own hips, a slow grind of his pajama-clad cock against Richie’s bare dick in his hand, and Richie makes a small whimpering noise in the back of his throat. Eddie does it again, then a third time, and Richie grabs his shoulders and comes between them. He drops his head back; Eddie works him through it, wringing him out on each pulse of his cock as he’s coming. When he starts to get oversensitive, he bats at Eddie’s hand, but he doesn’t stop until Richie’s actually whining at him to get off.

“Your turn, come on,” Richie says. He pushes Eddie’s pajama pants down and gets his hand on him, but he only has to jerk him a few times, his grip slick with precum and sweat, before Eddie’s coming hard between them.

“Richie,  _ fuck, Richie,”  _ he groans as the heat spirals through his limbs, making him loving and warm and tired. He falls down on Richie’s chest; Richie buries his face in his throat and kisses along his jaw. Eddie smiles, wriggling away.

“What got into you?” Richie murmurs, kissing him on the cheek, over the thin scar from Bowers’ knife.

“Just love you.” Eddie pulls back, kisses him again. “Oh, fuck, wait, actually— Hold on—”

“What’re you doing?” Richie asks, sounding more curious than anything as Eddie shifts to the end of the sofa and reaches underneath it. He feels along the lining of the springs, finds the tiny hole he’d cut there, and pulls out his small bag. Sitting back on his heels over Richie’s legs, he holds the bag up. “What’s that?”

“A surprise,” Eddie tells him. He fumbles with the strings of the bag, slightly distracted by the fact that they’re both still partially naked. For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Then, he blurts out, “My divorce was finalized today.”

Richie grins at him. “Hey, Eds, that’s great, I’m so—” He stops, then looks back down at the bag in Eddie’s hands. “Eddie, what is th—”

“Marry me,” Eddie cuts him off, before Richie could ask and ruin the whole thing. “I mean. Will you marry me? Fuck, I mean— I wish I’d been able to marry you after high school if you wanted. I figured proposing to you the day my divorce was finalized was the next best thing, urgency-wise.”

Richie looks up at him with those warm, happy, giant fucking eyes of his behind his glasses, already just about ready to cry.  _ “You _ want to marry  _ me?” _

Eddie huffs a laugh, then leans down to kiss him again. Against his lips, he says, “Yeah, dumbass,  _ I  _ want to marry  _ you.  _ If you say yes. Which you  _ haven’t.” _

“Obviously I’ll fucking marry you, dipshit, how is that even a fucking question?” Richie tells him. Eddie pulls the ring out of the bag and takes Richie’s hand, slides the ring on his left ring finger. Richie looks down at it, then up at him. There’s a brief moment where neither of them moves. Then, Richie laughs. “Our  _ dicks  _ are out. At our  _ proposal—” _

“We can’t tell  _ anyone  _ that part,” Eddie demands. Richie just laughs harder as Eddie snaps, “I fucking  _ mean it,  _ Richie, I’ll divorce you the fucking  _ day  _ we get married if you tell people, you fucking  _ see if I don’t—” _

“I love you so much,” Richie interrupts him joyfully. Eddie can’t help but smile, in the face of his open happiness. The lingering image of Richie nearly dying on the gravel of Neibolt Street fades to the back of his mind when he gets to see this Richie every day instead.

“I love you, too,” Eddie tells him. He kisses Richie again and says, “So,  _ so  _ much, sweetheart. I  _ love you,”  _ as Richie laughs tearfully, hugging Eddie close and burying his face in his hair.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) talk to me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon)! I'm currently taking commissions there!


End file.
